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James Penner on Muck Rack

James Penner

Los Angeles, San Juan
As seen in: Los Angeles Review of Books, Medium, Yahoo Life, Substack, Salon, Yahoo, Alta Journal, Lucid News
Covers:  Books, Music, Cinema, and Psychedelia.
Bylines:@LAReviewofbooks, @AltaJournal, @lucidnewssite; author of Pinks, Pansies, and Punks: the Rhetoric of Masculinity and Timothy Leary: The Harvard Years.

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James Penner’s Biography

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I am English Professor who writes about literary culture and all aspects of psychedelia.

James Penner’s Journalist Portfolio

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Los Angeles Review of Books

Los Angeles Review of Books

Regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books

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Alta Journal

Alta Journal

Book reviewer.

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James Penner | Substack

James Penner | Substack

Essays and Reviews.

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The Letters of Thom Gunn

The Letters of Thom Gunn

James Penner reviews The Letters of Thom Gunn and explores the poet's life and interest in psychedelics

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Michael Pollan's Adventures with Opium, Caffeine and Mescaline - Lucid News

Michael Pollan's Adventures with Opium, Caffeine and Mescaline - Lucid News

Pollan's new book, "This Is Your Mind On Plants," reintroduces the Huxleyan tradition of cultivating spiritua…

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The Wonderful and Absurd Life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary: Fashion Icon, Fugitive, and Psychedelic...

The Wonderful and Absurd Life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary: Fashion Icon, Fugitive, and Psychedelic...

After playing a key part in breaking Timothy Leary out of prison, Rosemary Woodruff Leary would have to fight…

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Articles

11-7-56‬‬‬‬

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By James Penner
| Substack
11-7-56 was not a famous LSD trip; in fact, it was unknown for several decades. 11-7-56 involved four people: Dr Humphry Osmond, the physician and researcher who coined the phrase ‘psychedelic’; Matthew Huxley, the only son of Aldous Huxley; Ellen Huxley, the wife of Matthew; and Francis Huxley, the son of famous biologist, Julian Huxley and Matthew’s first cousin. Although Aldous Huxley was not a direct participant—he was in California—he was on everyone’s mind during the trip as it unfolded.
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Writing the Psychedelic Odyssey of Rosemary Woodruff Leary

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By James Penner
| Substack
Susannah Cahalan can pinpoint the moment when she decided to write the story of Rosemary Woodruff Leary’s life. She was walking down a tree-lined street in Brooklyn, contemplating her next book project. Should she write Rosemary’s biography, or take a well-paid ghostwriting job? As she pondered her professional dilemma, Cahalan found a piece of paper that featured a striking image: an owl with mushrooms growing out from its head. She later learned that owls appeared in Rosemary’s diary and writings.
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A trip too far: The LSD experience that blew up the Huxley family Original

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By James Penner, Ed Prideaux
| Salon Verified
In November 1956, three people gathered in a converted Connecticut barn to take LSD, a powerful psychedelic drug that was legal at the time. The children had just been put to bed upstairs. In the converted barn's main room, Elizabethan ballads drifted through smoke-thick air as someone scattered chrysanthemum petals across a sheepskin rug. The flowers seemed to reanimate in the candlelight, blooming and dying with each flicker.
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